Monthly Archives: March 2014

It may seem absurd to wait until a certain date to watch an episode of series that aired twenty years ago. It might actually be absurd. It might be insane. We might be insane. We probably are. We obviously are. We probviously are.

This is all immaterial and unimportant.

More important is considering how we are affected by a hiatus in a series that aired twenty years ago. It is different from the same phenomenon in a currently-running series in that we already know what is going to happen (or we would if we had not purposefully cleared our minds in order to go into the field as if we are seeing everything for the first time like good social scientists do. See Glaser, B. & Strauss A., The Discovery of Grounded Theory, 1967, pp. 148-149). Even if we say that we don’t know what is going to happen, we know that something is going to happen and that we will someday soon know it. Time and tense get really complex, don’t they? It is particularly difficult to keep one’s temporal selves integrated when conducting experiments like this. Take care not to have allowed your past selves to screw over your present self or to allow your present self to screw over your future selves by looking up plot summaries on the Google. It will happen. They were devious bastards, back there in the past. And you are too, right now, you jerk.

But I digress.

The real question is: “Why wait, you morons? You can just watch the episodes whenever you want.” And the real answer to that is “We know, idiot, but that is not the point of the exercise.” What we seek here is authenticity of experience not immediate gratification. What kind of example would we be setting for X-Files 50 Years Later if we just watched whatever we want whenever we want? What kind of example would we set for X-Files 20 Years Later, 20 Years Later (the almost certainly inevitable 20 year anniversary re-watching of this re-watching project)? A terrible example, that’s what kind.

Anyway, we’re on hiatus right now, until next week. That is really all I meant to announce here. I get into the moment though, and I just go with it. So we wait. We wait and wait and wait. We wait until March 18 when the current previous hiatus will have finished and “Miracle Man” will have been aired previously. We do it for truth and justice. And integrity and science. But mostly we do it to keep our past selves and their influence in the past where they belong. We may be travelling through time, albeit slowly and always forward, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t authentically participate in the past. We do what we want. The past is dead! Long live the (future?) past!